It takes an e-village

New communities to wire for telecommuting boom

MADERA COUNTY, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- The old mantra of real estate -- location, location, location -- is getting a run for its money.

"When you move into a home, you expect some connectivity."
Paul Doherty,The Digit Group

Builders of a new central California "tele-community" are laying the electronic groundwork that will allow residents to do their jobs, check on their kids at day care and order their groceries from the corner store all without leaving the house.

In addition to constructing the usual roads and sewers, the developers are laying underground fiber optics and cable to create an infrastructure they hope will attract and support corporate refugees desperate to flee long commutes and steep home prices.

The growing popularity of such "e-villages" in many parts of the nation is putting pressure on home builders to make local interactivity the law of the land. A wired house and neighborhood is becoming as much of a basic asset as plumbing, electricity and heating/ventilation/air conditioning, experts say.

"There's this fourth utility called telecommunications," said Paul Doherty, managing director of the Digit Group, a consulting firm in Memphis, Tenn. "When you move into a home, you expect some connectivity."

Developers will make digital amenities widely available within three years, he said. "It will gain enough momentum to have many different homeowners associations and home builders consider it not a nice-to-have, but a must-have."

Fresno digs in

The concept of high-performance villages is taking off around the world in places such as Sweden, Brazil, Argentina and Melbourne, Australia.

"Folks can keep their high-paying jobs in Silicon Valley or Orange County or wherever they may be."
Greg Merritt,Nortel Networks

The California prototype, set to break ground next year, is located in Madera County near Fresno and is situated a few hours from major career centers in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The development is targeting telecommuters to fill its planned 30,000 units of low- and high-end houses and apartments, said Greg Merritt, vice president of portfolio market development at Nortel Networks, one of the project's telecommunications contractors.

"Folks can keep their high-paying jobs in Silicon Valley or Orange County or wherever they may be," he said.

Nortel, under an estimated $5.6 million contract with Rio Mesa Utility Services, will design, install and support a comprehensive voice, broadcast video and data network for the first 500 units in the development. Its interest reaches beyond the business arrangement -- 17 percent of its 94,000 employees work from home full or part time.

Nortel is one of a handful of partners overseeing the construction, including California State University Fresno, Chawanakee School District, Edison Utility Services, Sierra Foothills Public Utilities District, Cal-Trans and Property Development Group, owner of the land on which the 15,000-acre project is being built.

Social changes

While the infrastructure technology is nothing new, the urban planning element is a novel use for it, Merritt said. "What's unique is we're putting it all together connecting all the homes and businesses and making it a fundamental part of the community."

"This is the new tone and will be the new fabric of the workplace in the near future."
Dennes Coombs,Property Development Group

The Madera County model will be built to minimize auto traffic and encourage remote workers to meet in community centers, said Dennes Coombs, president of Property Development Group.

Residents of the e-village should see a savings from having their utilities come through a single pipeline, developers believe. But Coombs said the biggest advantages will be price -- a $200,000 house in Fresno would cost $1 million in parts of the San Francisco Bay area -- and car use -- a commute of 1.5 hours each way to the north for a year would cost $30,000 in upkeep, depreciation, insurance and gas.

While a tight labor market has made telecommuting options more popular, working from home will keep its value regardless of the economy, especially in traffic-congested cities, Coombs said. "This is the new tone and will be the new fabric of the workplace in the near future."

"You can't continue the population growth we've been seeing in these metropolitan areas," he said. "It's approaching dysfunction."

Two other master planned communities in the United States are being developed in partnership with telecommunications companies. DC Ranch, an 8,200-acre project in Scottsdale, Ariz., is using Qwest to build out its communications infrastructure while Dakota Dunes, a 2,000-acre development in the southeastern corner of South Dakota, is being wired by a joint venture of US West Communications and AT&T.

In both cases, the infrastructure includes fiber optic cabling that connects all of the homes and businesses in the planned development. The wiring allows homeowners to take advantage of high-speed data services, voice and video services and digital television signals.

Urban planners are anxious to measure the behavioral outcomes of e-villages, Doherty said. They want to know if neighbors feel more comfortable meeting online than introducing themselves in person, for example. They're also anticipating some people will opt out of the virtual euphoria and the always-on sense of community.

"We may find there are certain people who don't want to be connected to other people," Doherty said.

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